Location: Toronto, ON
Age: 16
Gear: FL Studio
Notable beats: Jay Z’s “Crown,” Travi$ Scott’s “Uptown,” SZA’s “Teen Spirit”
Signature sound: “A lot of hard drums and weird sounds and samples. I like to add things that you would never think of adding. It’s work, work, work. Start with a sound or sample that intrigues you, and build around that.”
Wishes for 2014: “I hope everyone continues to develop their own sound to help music—not just rap music—evolve even further.”

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Age: 30
Gear: Logic Pro, “pretty much anything Native Instruments”
Notable beats: Drake’s “Worst Behavior,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees”
Signature sound: “I’m very melody-first. I like to have melodies that trigger emotions, so I’ll use ambient-sounding stuff, or vocal samples, as a structure in the beat. I love to use voices; I love to use language. From there, I can build drums around the melody.”
Wishes for 2014: “To help artists become not as comfortable with what has already been done. Overall, a good thing for pushing forward is to find something that is maybe not a part of rap, and make it rap. If you listen to alternative music, gospel, country—you can make it rap. You just gotta make it sound dope.”

Location: Atlanta, GA
Age: 27
Gear: Logic, Omnisphere, Pro Tools
Notable beats: Migos’ “Hannah Montana,” Future’s “No Love,” a forthcoming Young Thug mixtape
Signature sound: “I take the melodic and the trap sound and mix them together. I like bells a lot. I don’t really like synths too much; I like organic sounds.”
Wishes for 2014: “I see it going back to people really rapping, and not just relying on that hard, trap sound. I’m trying to migrate out of that sound.”